Yes there is a conflict of interest in providing advice and then making safety judgements based on the results of that advice. However, in the absence of integrity, even avoiding this duality does not assure a working system. I am sure we can all think of examples of policing or regulatory agencies who have become too close to those they were overseeing and carelessness or corruption were the result.
There is a major problem with customer service on the part of certifying agencies if such advice is not provided. For the naive customer, taking a product to a testing agency without prior experience can result in a long process loop of testing and rework. Such a process results in problems and hostility for both sides. The alternative is to involve two agents, one for advice, another for certification, but this is an expensive and not necessarily complete solution. Most companies use this model, using internal safety engineers for design and external agencies for certification. There is a growing trend toward self declaration which takes us back to the original conflict you cite. Countering this conflict however are several factors including legal liability, market pressure, outside auditing agencies, and government surveillance. I tend to think that in low risk industries such as ITE, this self declaration (or in question you asked, design advice from certifying agencies) is a reasonable approach. Even in high risk industries such as transportation, nuclear power, medicine, such approaches are permissible and commonly used, but it becomes crucial to make the countering factors I mentioned work effectively. Bob Johnson [email protected] wrote: > > Hello everyone, > > I would like your opinion (based both on your knowledge of the > iso25/iso45001 and personal experience and view) on the > "certification\testing lab anomaly". > > The issue is this: if one entity (let's call it the "LAB") offers both > to consult and fix technical problems AND to test and verify the > product after it has been fixed, don't we have an inherently unhealthy > situation? > Also,if the LAB offers a "fixed price" for a specific job(i.e. $XXX to > get certification to Y), doesn't this too make a potentially unhealthy > situation?
